Pages

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

This new line of poems is worthless. The idea is 100 pages a various approaches/form and the three pages I have will not do. They are poems and nothing else and that is all. They are like little potted plants. I could re-arrange them or intersperse the lines but they're still worthless.

There is nothing going on here but little poems. So what. There is nothing there that is anything other than these three pages of poem writing.

I have had a couple ideas for forms, but they too threaten to be just more potted plants. The kind that people pick up at the supermarket to add a bit of life and color. Water them or not there are plenty more where those came from. Oh yeah we can all be plant machines. Come and see and buy our little plants. Screw that.

So you know God is great, so you write four scripts that are distinct yet form a unified effort you have no need even to define and then here you are, a plant farm. So it's like, what the fuck. I mean, yeah I'm happy and grateful and all.

And the trap is, I can see the long work, but seeking insight or a breakthrough in so many words would be to ignite a short-term solution, a spark that I could not sustain. No, I do not want a breakthrough. Not for a 100 page poem. I need a notion that suits a slow heartbeat.

I think the lesson here is some admixture of completion and acceptance, pride - in the mirror, or behind the reflection. So I turn away to seek the lost sheep of the impossible poem. This is what I know. To turn away and face what only the words or marks I am capable of can comprehend. And in facing that emptiness as before to find the words and the form. In two dimensions, the box or block being the first sign of civilization, I suppose, of this sort of work having been accomplished.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

I am not entirely comfortable with writing. Not alone or with others, not employing other sources or materials. Not as a person, writing, for I am called to pray, constantly, and have been so forever, since before time took shape as the passing of this world.

But I write and as I write I ask, is it okay to write. I hope it is okay. Fine. I am quite sure it is okay but ultimately, I cannot be comfortable with it. I do so, I write, of course, as I am propelled to do so. And I am conscious of no impulse or need or desire for words of doubt or apology. No, I am not sorry I write. Of course not. And this is about my understanding only. What I mean to say, to indicate, is that in writing I am one, composing; putting into form words from out of one or another additional form of correspondence.

So, I write. But what is that? I do not look to anyone to explain to me what it is, its value. That would be superfluous and selfish, a lion looking to other lions to comment on the meat I have brought to the ground; a satellite reflecting on transmissions to those who rely on the images transmitted. No, writing is more than this if it is speaking as one who is not one. I do hope this.

You would expect nothing less (or other...) of me (at this point!) then to say, to write, that poetry in form is a kind of admission. It is a means of confession. Of worth and loss, of presence and dependence.

To say at one and the same time, at the exact same moment, I am, and I am yours.

I have written poems in form, the block/box form, for 30 years. I was prompted by the double acrostics of Herbert, and now I too am baptised and confirmed, and I have published/confessed 20 manuscripts, and all of this with every other fact and circumstance I can recount makes perfecte sense. But this is not so much about me, as it is about you; you, who made me, you who read me.

We are one who love. In love we are one. As we render and as we read, we are one, in one. To know this, quite precisely, is perhaps a form with one end, in one beginning.

Thursday, October 11, 2012

I have finished and published Colossal Ways You Were Right. The form of the book is as I planned. Forty pages, forty poems, 20 being box/blocks, alternating with 20 four-line strophe blocks. This is my 20th published book.

I realized afterwards that this book is the last installment of a year-long project including publication of four books, the others being (dot), First Days Last, and Farms Go Faster. All these can be previewed and purchased at my author's page at lulu.com. I can't remember feeling so done with a project, so utterly complete.

This group of four books interests me also as clearly they took form to a purpose, and their publication (in one calendar year) could only happen for me through a POD type publication platform, such as lulu.com. I think again about what that means, being self-published, further convinced that I am being myself, being self-published.

And so I wonder at all the words written on behalf of thoughts that language is not the author's. Then whose is the book? What is the self that employs language assembled in the form of a book that we call published; who is the I who publishes, and what is mine that I call it mine? What is the "self" in "self-published" but an ulterior designation, a socialization of the will, a kind of forensic exhibit of motive and opportunity, an expression flung at the hunter's feet; an incrimination dripping from the self-knowing facade we call our other self.

I am quite certain that I publish these books, but I am uncertain who does not publish their books. In other words, I publish my own books, and as with this last project, I now see that I write in part understanding the dynamics of the purpose of being able to publish what I write. Otherwise things would stagnate. As it is I can switch gears, modes, at will or by design. No doubt I could never work any other way. I feel like my entire life is involved in this form of account.

That's enough of that for now. When I do get to writing again I expect it will be a longer project taking upwards of a year and encompassing 100 pages of material. That's the general notion as of now.

Monday, October 1, 2012

I attended a reading by a Charles Bernstein tonight and while principally bored I left the room almost giddy, convinced that I may be one of the greatest writers of all time.

Now, what does this mean? It means what it says. What I do I do certainly, even as I know nothing of what else I might do. Of course I have no connection with anyone hardly or anything really, self-publishing now for years. I care only for the work of friends, as I care only for my friends, because I like them and I want them to be happy. I have no influence, no students, no critics, no effect. No nothing. In this my generosity of spirit is beyond reckoning.

I hear a Charles Bernstein read and have no reference points. I do not think to compare and have no motivation to wonder at this or that, past, present, or future. I do not say Rosebud. I hear the work and am unimpressed and largely uninterested. I have no qualms and no position to support. A man performs. Time goes on. Tick tock. I am without critics or chorus. I could not be happier.

My greatness is this: I will write and my writing will either disappear from the face of the earth or not, and it is all the same to me. I do not care one way or the other. I wouldn't know how to care. I am sure that I used to care, but it has been a long time now, and I am very far down a road that opens to fields that have no sign or hint of that sort of emotion or consideration. My factors are otherwise employed. This is a revolution.

I cannot entertain except by accident or occurrence. And as to profit or position...hah! All I can see is the work I do, the machine on which I type. I have no office, no facility, no co-heirs, no investiture. There is this, then there is this, then there is this again.

I should explain myself better, but after all, that would be a kind of failure for which I simply do not have time nor the inclination to indulge. I have lost the flavor of half-measures.

So, I may be very great, and it means exactly to me what it means if I am very, very insignificant. Not worth the time to ignore. Yes, both states are equally satisfying - the latter perhaps more so. Yes, I am sure of it. To disappear without a trace. What could be more sublime. And the only way to demonstrate what I mean is to say it in this way, and to state further, if you doubt me, well, look to yourself first, then think about what I am saying. Do that. Attend to your own matters. Look busy. We have a right to a full account.